


Flesh and Blood

by wargoddess



Series: A Family Affair [5]
Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: Angst, BDSM, Dissociation, Incest, M/M, Multi, Non-Graphic Violence, Sibling Incest, alternate personalities
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-23
Updated: 2019-05-23
Packaged: 2020-03-09 22:33:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18926299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wargoddess/pseuds/wargoddess
Summary: When Nero is seriously injured, Vergil's not the one to worry about.





	Flesh and Blood

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [【授翻】【VD】Flesh and Blood 血肉之躯](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20708708) by [Fallenbell](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fallenbell/pseuds/Fallenbell)



> No father/son or uncle/nephew in this one. Just the usual twincest.

     By the time Vergil arrived, the worst was over.  Nero lay sprawled amid sweat-soaked sheets, unconscious.  The human woman who sat beside his bed went pale when Vergil emerged from the shadows.  Vergil ignored her, his eyes fixed on the boy.

     Someone had cut his shirt off.  A sheet covered most of him, but ugly markings sprawled all over his right shoulder and that side of this chest, spiraling out from a point high on his back.  The marks smelled like rot and looked like raised, blackened ridges, branching and spreading as they crawled across his skin.  Quiescent and fading, now, but Vergil could smell the amines and aldehydes of distress in Nero's sweat, and there were still lines of pain etched into his face even in sleep.  He had suffered for some time before the poison's progress was checked.

     "You're him.  The, uh, the _other_ one."  Vergil heard the woman swallow after she spoke.  He took care not to look at her.  She radiated fear, and that might trigger his hunting instincts.  But she was brave enough to speak, at least, for which he was grateful.  "He's gon' be all right; I guess that's the important part.  The poison did a lot of damage 'fore I could get him to the van.  Th-that's where I made up a batch of the antidote.  Never did it before.  But it worked, an', an' he's a lot better already, shakin' it off same as he does everything else."  She hesitated, then lowered her gaze, and now he smelled her shame.  "It was something that... m-my father came up with.  I'd read about it in his notes.  A poison that kills h-high-order demons.  I didn't think he'd ever perfected it, but somebody must have."

     Vergil gazed down at Nero, examining him with more than his eyes.  "And his attackers?"

     "Some kind of commando team.  Expensive gear.  Shiny guns, lots of 'em.  We thought, at first, that they needed help."  The woman shakes her head, scowling in frustration now.  "The demons were already _dead_ , that's what I don't get.  You know how Nero gets when he's havin' fun -- except he didn't drag it out the way he usually does, 'cause I think he was worried about the commandos gettin' hurt.  They were fine, though; commandos coulda sat back and had a cigarette while he went at it.  None of us was expectin'..."  She sighed.  "Lady ran 'em off after Nero went down.  That's when I grabbed him."

     Vergil narrowed his eyes.  Commandos.  "Human?"

     "Yeah."  A heavy sigh.  "Far as I could tell, anyway."

     Vergil bent and tugged the sheets down enough to see the where the poison-marks had begun to heal on Nero's belly, leaving white lines that would doubtless vanish with time.  Beneath the scarring, however, he could hear the boy's heartbeat, as strong and fierce as always.  His lungs were clear, breathing unlabored.  Definitely recovering.  After a moment's consideration, Vergil bent to the thickest of the scarring, on Nero's shoulder -- close to the point on his back where the poison dart must have struck him.  Vergil put his face close to it, deliberately rested a hand on the worst of the black ridges, and inhaled deeply.  The stench of rot was enough to make his gorge rise, though of course he willed this aside.  He had smelled, and eaten, much fouler things during the long and terrifying years of his childhood, when he had often been prey himself. 

     When Vergil straightened, he felt a ripple in his blood.  He held out his hand and turned it, watching as black ridges rose on his skin for a moment, then began to fade to white lines.

     The woman -- Nico, whispered V, within him -- leaned forward, all fear gone amid excitement.  "Oh, wow," she said.  "Did you just make yourself immune to the poison?  By _sniffing_ it?  Wow."  Her accent drew the last word out into two syllables.

     It was actually Nero's new, hard-won immunity that Vergil had taken into himself, but he didn't bother to correct her.  Too many humans knew too much about demons, if they had begun to experiment on demonkind to deadly effect.  

     Nero stirred in his sleep, brow furrowing more; he muttered a blurry, directionless, "Fuck off," and then settled again.  Amused, Vergil ran the backs of his fingers -- already healed, the immunity assimilated -- down the boy's cheek, ignoring Nico's inhalation at his gesture.  He did not care what she thought of him.  The momentary affection had been a whim, nothing more.

     For whatever reason, this prompted her to add, "See?  He's gettin' bitchy already.  I figure by morning, he'll be back to his li'l ol' self."

     "Of course.  My son is too strong to be put down for long by something like this."  And then she flinched as Vergil finally focused on her.  The prey always knew it was prey, even when the predator deigned to allow it to live.  "Thank you for looking after him, Nico.  Please continue to do so."

     Her eyes got big as saucers, and he stifled irritation.  Why were all of these creatures so shocked whenever he showed them basic courtesy?  Dante was the one with no manners.  She was Nero's, and Nero was Vergil's; why wouldn't he be courteous?  Humans made no sense.  He turned to go.

     "Are you, uh," and she swallowed loudly again, "going after them?  Lady and Dante are on the commandos' trail, trying to figure out who sent 'em."

     "No," Vergil said, stopping but not bothering to turn back.  "They've already found the culprits."

     "Oh."  Nico paused, probably in confusion.  "How do you know?"

     Because Dante was also Vergil's, and there was nothing of his presence in Vergil's mind right now except a rapidly-building thunderhead of blood-red rage.

     "Foolishness, Dante," Vergil murmured, and drew the Yamato.  Best to get there quickly.  He cut the air, stepped into the wound between realities, and left without wasting breath on answering Nico's question.

#

     He could still hear the explosive thuds of Lady's ridiculous gun outside as he strolled through the upper level of a high-tech corporation's headquarters.  Private security forces, he guessed, doubtless trying to get into the building to protect their leader.  Lady could handle it; Vergil focused on what mattered.

     In the CEO's office -- a multilevel, multi-room suite with a marvelous view of the whole city -- Vergil found Dante standing at the window.  Also in the room, huddled on the floor beside a shattered conference table, were five men in expensive suits.  Vergil considered them for a moment.  All men.  It was truly a pity that humans fought so hard to keep their women from power.  Women tended not to make stupid, potentially-world-ending decisions quite as often.  Alas.

     "Oh, shit, what now," one of the humans wailed, seeing Vergil.  He let himself look at that one.  Small prey, too thin to have much meat or flavor, with poor vision, to judge by the thickness of his glasses.  A servant to the others.

     "I take it you're the ones who attacked my son," Vergil said.  For the moment he ignored Dante, who stood far too still at the window, with his back to the whole room.  With the tip of Yamato's sheath, Vergil turned one of the plush leather chairs that was still intact, and sat down, crossing his legs.

     "Your _son_?"  One of the men, the one who was fattest and crammed deepest into the corner, stared at him.  "He wasn't -- "

     "It wasn't us!" blurted another.  Not the eyeglass-wearing servant this time, but another prey who stank of his own urine.  "The security team, we only ordered them to, to..."  He trailed off, eyes widening as he stared at Vergil, some sort of understanding percolating through his small, prey-brain.  "Oh.  My God."

     "Not yet," Vergil said evenly, though he inclined his head to acknowledge the unspoken _Someday_ in his own words.  "The team had been ordered to...?"

     The man swallowed.  "To... it was a test, you see?  After what happened to Redgrave, we needed a way to, to fight them.  So we opened a portal to the underworld -- "

     Vergil raised his eyebrows, impressed by the technical proficiency of their stupidity.  "And, naturally, your team were immediately set upon."  The demon world was a completely different -- and nightmarish -- ecosystem.  There were scavenger-species, like the empusa, that spent nearly their entire life-cycles waiting for portal breaches.  Vergil barely noticed them anymore -- he always got a few when he used the Yamato to travel, a constant nuisance, though easy to kill -- but for humans, they would be terrifying, and dangerous.

     "Y-yes."  The eyeglass-wearer.  He swallowed audibly.  "You're V- _Vergil_.  The one who brought the demon tree to Redgrave.  And that tower, the one that nearly opened a permanent gate to the underworld -- "

     "The Temen-ni-gru," Vergil supplied.  "Yes."

     "And the gates in Fortuna -- "

     "No.  I only killed some people there."  And he had enjoyed himself enough to take that lovely human girl, the one who'd ended up giving birth to Nero, but beyond that, nothing else of importance had occurred in the town of his father's cult.  "Is your intel that faulty?  An entire town saw what happened."

     Another of the men glanced at the cornered one, whom Vergil had by now decided was the leader.  They were all talking to cover him.  "The surviving cultists wouldn't talk until we offered to pay them..."  He grimaced, realizing that somewhere along the way they'd been had.  "They said the son of Sparda was to blame for everything that happened."  But then he frowned again, looking from Vergil to Dante, again finally understanding, too late, just how wrong their intel had been.  Yes, _two_ sons.  And a mouthy grandson.

     "That's incorrect," Vergil said.  " _Humans_ opened the hellgates in Fortuna.  Just as you apparently did."  Vergil sighed, rapidly growing bored with these men's puling and whining.  "So let me see if I have this right.  You sent a paramilitary team out to open a portal to the underworld, so that you could test a poison prototype that you likely stole from the Order of the Sword.  You hoped to find a high-order demon as a test subject, which is laughable, because your team was almost immediately overwhelmed by the demonic equivalent of cockroaches.  But when _my son_ arrived -- " He emphasized the words ever-so-lightly, just to remind them of their crime, and they all twitched.  " -- and cleaned up your mess, some member of your team decided that _he_ must be a high-order demon, and shot him in the back."  Doubtless while Nero had been trying to _protect_ the humans.  The boy was entirely too soft-hearted.  Vergil would speak to him about it later.

     "We were watching on drone cameras," one of the men, who hadn't spoken before, blurted.  He glowered at Vergil -- though he also kept glancing nervously at Dante.  Good to see that at least one of these useless creatures had healthy self-preservation instincts.  "That young man -- he _couldn't_ have been human.  Humans can't _do_ things like that."

     A few could, though they wouldn't be stupid enough to work for a company like this.  And all things considered, the commandos had been right in essence, if not in the particulars; Nero was the equal of any high-order demon.  Still, Vergil had his confirmation.  "I see.  Thank you."

     Shaking his head, Vergil got to his feet and stepped around the remnants of the table.  Dante still hadn't moved -- but he was glowing faintly, Vergil saw as he stopped just behind his brother.  The air around Dante wavered with heat-haze.

     "We didn't order the soldiers to fire," said one of the humans.  Deeper-voiced, older:  the CEO.  "Do you understand, you... you creature?  It was -- _your son's_ injury was -- an accident.  And yet you have attacked my company, destroyed my property -- "  Someone tried to shush him, and the man rode over this.  Somewhere outside, Vergil heard Lady laugh, followed by another explosion.  "Even now, your, your _subordinates_ are -- "

     Vergil sighed.  "None of you understand," he said, speaking to them, watching Dante.  "Foolishness.  You're all so terrified of _me_."

     They fell silent in consternation, and Vergil dismissed them from his awareness.  Because Vergil _had_ tried to restore the connections between the underworld and human realm, certainly, and he would do it again if it would gain him anything.  But that would be calculated, rational destruction.  Dante, however... Vergil smiled, admiring the pent strength in his brother's furious posture, enjoying the feel of delicate, lace-fragile restraint holding all that power back.  It would be beautiful, if Dante ever truly let himself break.  Absolutely beautiful.  A storm to consume the world... because Dante would not stop, Vergil knew.  If he ever began to kill humans, it would not be calculated or rational.  It would be madness incarnate, and it would probably wipe out the human race.

     And at any other time, Vergil would sit back and enjoy the show.  Now, however... Vergil sighed.  "Dante."

     Dante turned from the window.  There was nothing in his face -- no expression, no thought, no hint of his human soul.  His gaze dismissed Vergil, fixing on the humans in the corner.

     "No," Vergil said.

     Those empty eyes snapped back to Vergil's.  Still there was no anger in them.  Just instinct.

     "They have harmed what's mine," Dante said.  Vergil lifted an eyebrow, but he supposed it could not be helped.  Dante thought like a human -- under normal circumstances -- and humans could be proprietary in ways that defied the logical order.  Well, it cost Vergil nothing to share Nero, so after a moment, he inclined his head in acknowledgement of the claim.

     "They did," he agreed.  And then, because Dante's glow was actually beginning to scorch and crack the floor under his feet, Vergil sighed.  "But if you make me defend these humans from you, brother, I will never forgive you.  Neither will Nero."

     Dante's lips curled back from his sharpening teeth, and Vergil felt rather than heard the low threat of his growl.  There was still no emotion in his eyes, though they'd begun to glow as well.  It was terrifying, and exhilarating.  Vergil was not at all surprised to find himself painfully aroused by the sight.  Still, Vergil stood ready.  Dante was unpredictable at the best of times, but in this state... well.  If nothing else, it would be an exquisite battle.

     "Nero is mine," Dante said.  He had begun to focus on the men in the corner again.

     Vergil stepped closer, deliberately crowding him.  That worked; instantly Dante's hostility transferred back to him, with blade-sharp focus.  Vergil smiled.  Oh, how he loved this.  " _Ours_ ," he replied.

     Dante's gaze flickered.  For the first time, Vergil suspected, he actually _saw_ Vergil.  Then he frowned, blinked, and finally stopped growling and glowing.  Vergil watched him take a slow breath.  Roll his shoulders a little.  Then another breath, before he finally nodded and focused on Vergil.  This time, Vergil actually saw Dante in there.

     "Ours," he conceded at last, terse with irritation.  "Fine."  He glanced at the men in the corner again -- but though his gaze was extremely unfriendly, he no longer looked like a man about to start a genocidal rampage.  Shame.

     "Go back and look after Nero, brother," Vergil said, patting Dante's chest gently.  Dante was still tight as wire under his hand.  He'd regained control of himself, but it was still a fragile thing.  "I'll be there soon."

     Without another word, Dante set his jaw, turned on his heel, and walked away.  There was a shattered window at the far end of the room; he transformed, flicked his wings out with enough force to spiderweb the rest of the glass in the suite, and then he was gone.

     Vergil sighed in his wake, then turned back to the men in the corner.  The CEO started to splutter again, but one of his companions actually clapped a hand over his mouth.  The eyeglass-wearing servant took one look at Vergil's face, then gasped and tried to scramble back, though there was nowhere to go.  "You said," the servant blurted, face pale with panic.  "Y-you told that other one... you said you wouldn't kill us!"

     "It would have been wrong for _Dante_ to kill you, yes," Vergil acknowledged, drawing his sword.  It had always troubled Vergil to sully the Yamato with inferior blood, but cleaning up was necessarily messy.  "My brother is like a well-made sword:  magnificent when handled with skill, brittle when sullied or treated clumsily.  My son -- whom you almost killed -- unfortunately takes after him in that respect."  Vergil sighed.  "I, on the other hand, am more... versatile."

     They had begun to whimper and weep and plead for their lives.  Pointless.  Vergil shook his head, tired of them already.  They weren't even interesting prey.  It would be difficult to restrain his impatience long enough to get the answers he needed out of them, but of course he would do whatever he had to, to protect what was his.

     "Let's start by discussing this poison you made," Vergil said, and smiled.

#

     An entire hour passed before Vergil returned to Devil May Cry.  It had taken that long to destroy the poison samples and several other variants the company had been working on, find and erase all the lab data and backups, and then finish off the last of the security forces -- because Arkham's daughter had merely been playing with them.  Her sloppiness did not surprise him, but Vergil could not abide waste, of time or anything else.  She was disgruntled that he had spoiled her fun.  He did not care.

     Nero was deeply asleep when Vergil looked in on him.  The marks of the poison and even their scars had faded completely, Vergil was satisfied to see, so he tugged the sheet back up to the boy's chin, folded it, and tucked it in neatly.  The woman had fallen asleep in her chair beside him.  He shut the door quietly, so as not to disturb either.

     Dante was in his room, at the window again, though not as still as he had been before.  This time he was actually breathing.  Harder than usual, in fact, and shifting with restless tension, flexing his hands.  Interesting.

     "Took your sweet time," Dante said.

     "My apologies, brother.  That place was a mess."  Vergil eased off his coat, and draped it over a chair.  "Nero seems well."

     "Yeah.  _Now._ "  Dante shifted from foot to foot.  "You didn't see him when Nico first brought him in, Verg.  That _shit_ was all over him, killing him by inches.  He didn't have a voice left, he'd been screaming so much."

     Vergil nodded absently, undoing his cufflinks with care.  He liked this set.  "Seems a poor poison."

     "What?"  Instant hostility in Dante's voice.

     Vergil shrugged, removing his vest.  "I simply meant that a good poison works quickly, and _this_ poison did not.  I suspect Nero's human... admixture... kept the stuff from killing him long enough for Nico's antidote to take effect."  Humans saving near-humans from humans.  Fascinating.

     Dante hissed out a soft, humorless laugh through his teeth.  "Never thought I'd hear you speaking for _them_."

     How interesting, that emphasis.  Vergil wondered if he himself had ever sounded so bitter.  It was a troubling thought.  One could not be above humanity if one resented it.  Dante, however, had no pride to consider.  When he hated, he simply hated.  There was a purity in this that Vergil admired, despite himself.

     "Stating a truth isn't advocacy, brother," Vergil said.  He walked toward Dante.  "And ignoring truth isn't righteousness."

     Dante turned to glare as Vergil came toward him.  "You should have let me kill them," he said, with two voices.

     "No," Vergil said again, stopping only once he'd wrapped a hand around Dante's throat and pressed him against the wall.  Not hard, this time.  Dante's muscles were like rock under his hands.  Violence had its place for them -- a necessary, important place, as Vergil had recently taken care to demonstrate to Nero, to Nero's noticeable satisfaction.  But not at a time like this, when Dante already brimmed with incipient violence.  That way lay a duel to the death.  Once, such duels had been all they'd had, and Vergil had savored them with all the ferocity he possessed.  Better hate than nothing at all.  Now, however, they had other options.

     No less dangerous, though. 

     Dante allowed Vergil to pin him, but it was a near thing.  Vergil could feel the held tension of him, muscles going pliant too slowly, twitching now and again in involuntary resistance.  His voice was deeper when he spoke, his tone cooler, his diction more formal all of a sudden -- more like the way their father had spoken, once upon a time.  More like the way Vergil still spoke.  "They would kill us all if they could."

     "Perhaps."  Vergil leaned in, nuzzled the side of his face, breathed in his scent.  Dante didn't seem to notice.  "If we're weak or foolish, some of them will certainly try.  Again."

     "They always knew that I was different, when I was young."  Dante lunged against Vergil's hand abruptly, but Vergil had seen this coming.  He braced and pushed back, keeping Dante against the wall, and Dante continued speaking as if this hadn't happened.  Maybe he wasn't even aware of doing it.  "When I tried to go to school.  Have _friends_.  Act _normal_."  He laughed; Vergil narrowed his eyes at the rage in this.  "They will never accept us, no matter that we're half _them_ \-- "

     "I know."  Vergil kissed his neck -- gently, so gently.  Dante was most sensitive just behind and underneath his earlobe.  Vergil grazed teeth across this spot, and that got a reaction; Dante twitched a little in a way that wasn't quite rage.  Carefully, carefully.  "Of course I know, brother."  It was why he'd chosen the demons' path, long ago.  He could not be human, and demons, at least, respected power.  Dante, however, had actually tried to fit in with these weakling, cowardly, endlessly jealous creatures.  This would have been almost unfathomable to Vergil, but for one thing:  it meant that in his own way, Dante had been as alone as Vergil, in those dark years.

     He cupped the back of Dante's head and kissed his forehead, while Dante kept ranting.  " -- and no matter that we spill our blood _defending_ them, they _fear_ us -- "

     "Shhh," Vergil murmured against his skin.  "Hush, now."  It was gentle, but it was a command.  Dante trailed off, breathing hard, so Vergil nuzzled his lips out of their taut snarl.  When he managed to get Dante to respond at last, he spoke against his brother's mouth.  "We have only each other, Dante -- and now Nero -- but that's enough.  We are all we need."

     Some of the furious tension went out of Dante, seduced into quiescence.  He blinked at Vergil, and for a moment he was the Dante Vergil had always known.  Sweating, frightened, struggling.  "I don't want to hurt anyone," he blurted at Vergil.  Vergil could see his hands digging into the old drywall, cracking it.  "Don't let me. Vergil, please."

     "But you will do as I say, brother," Vergil replied, kissing each of Dante's eyelids.  They fluttered beneath his lips, like dying birds.  "And _only_ what I say.  Isn't that right?"

     Dante's breath quickened, roughening; the sound of humanity fading.  That was fine, however.  This was not a human matter.  "I don't... I don't serve you."

     "Don't you?"  Vergil kissed him again, this time tasting his mouth more thoroughly.  There was an instant in which Dante snarled and pushed back against him, and his teeth turned to razors; Vergil pulled his tongue back before he could lose it, but now there was plenty of blood to wet their mouths.  He laughed softly as he pulled away and then licked the blood from his own teeth.  "Ah, Dante.  Always so difficult." 

     "I've fought you."  Dante's eyes did not glow, but Vergil did not look away from their gleam this time.  This was a challenge, and there was only one way it could be resolved if they were to get through this night without a duel. Dante bared his teeth in a vicious grin. " _Beaten_ you. I could have killed you."

     "Possibly."  Vergil rather doubted it.  Dante was too soft-hearted for that.  "But you were _mine_ every time that we fought, little brother."  He leaned his forehead against Dante's and slid a hand down his shirt, tearing the buttons with his thumb.  "Each time, you put yourself through hell, and got stronger, _for me_.  Didn't you? I was everything to you."

     Something changed in Dante's face, like something unseen stirring beneath the skin.  When he looked at Vergil again, the emptiness was back in his red, red eyes.  "Sometimes I do want to kill you, Vergil," he said, very softly.  "It scares me that I do.  I love you so much.  But sometimes I dream of eating your heart."

     God, he was glorious.

     "And I yours, my Dante," Vergil breathed, smiling as he yanked off Dante's shirt with one hand and gripped his throat and jaw with the other.  Beneath his caressing hand, Dante's heart beat hard.  So easy to form claws and rip that heart out.  So tempting to let his own rage loose alongside Dante's -- 

     No. 

     "I want no one else to kill me, brother," he confessed.  This much was safe.  Words were always safe.  "Not even Nero.  But you will be _you_ when you do it.  Clearheaded, not half-mad and poisoned by weaklings' schemes.  You could never kill me like this.  But come at me with your whole heart, and I will meet your challenge gladly.  I'll die at your hands if you're strong enough -- or you at mine, if you aren't."  He found himself smiling.  He couldn't help it.  "Until then, you are _mine_ , and you will do as I _say_.  Is that understood?"

     There was a pent breath of a moment.  Dante's whole body vibrated, taut against Vergil's pressing weight.  His hair, lank with sweat, half-obscured his eyes -- which glared back at Vergil.  But Vergil saw his brother in there, amid all the defiance and unspoken threat.  The real Dante was as much of a rebel as their father had been... but Sparda had not rebelled until he deemed Mundus unworthy of his service.  Vergil would just have to remain worthy of Dante's. 

     So he smiled into those hot, hostile eyes... and after that eternal moment, Dante sighed and turned his face aside, baring his neck.

     Vergil bit him, sharply, and shoved a knee between his to grind against him until he gasped.  "I said, _'Is that understood?'_   Oh, my Dante, don't make me kill you, not after all this."  But he would, if Dante defied him for even one more moment.  He knew it, and Dante knew it.  That was the whole point.

     So Dante relaxed against him, though he hissed a little at the bite.  "Yeah. Understood."

     Vergil slid his tongue over Dante's neck, cleaning blood away from the small wound that had already closed.  "Very good.  Now.  No killing the humans."

     A shudder passed through Dante, and Vergil growled himself, hungry for more than battle.  Then Dante exhaled.  "No killing the humans.  Right."  He laughed.  This time it was weary, and only a little bitter.  "Fuck.  Can't believe I need _you_ to say that, of all people."

     Vergil pulled him away from the wall at last.  "We need what we need.  Now come."   

     He led Dante over to the rat's nest that was his bed.  Dante was already tugging at Vergil, demanding now that the existential crisis was settled, kicking off his pants and reaching for Vergil's.  Vergil shucked off the pants and then growled as he shoved Dante down, thrusting against him, biting at his scratchy, unshaved jaw -- that had to go next, Vergil hated the damned beard -- and holding his hands down.  Dante yielded readily enough, arching beneath him and murmuring "Give me, yeah, like that," or "Come on, yeah" or "Oh shit, so good," but Vergil knew better than to become complacent.  Not yet.

     Dante's demon came snarling back to the fore when Vergil had Dante's legs up on his shoulders.  In one breath Dante was lost in the fucking, working his own cock and moaning while Vergil gave him steady strength, and in the next he was snarling up at Vergil and trying to crush his head between his calves.  Vergil shoved his legs apart and pinned his wrists over his head and kept fucking him.  When Dante's growls turned to something other than aggression, Vergil pulled out of him and stood, breathing hard, aching to continue -- but this had to go a certain way.  "Over," he commanded.  And when Dante groaned with need and turned over for him, Vergil had to shut his eyes for a moment, lest he lose control and ruin everything.  Instead, he yanked Dante's arms behind his back, kept a tight grip on his wrists because his talons had reappeared, and resumed his brotherly attentions only once Dante begged for more.

     This was the way of demons, Vergil knew:  dominance and submission were eternal struggles, not matters to be settled in a single contest, or even a few.  Thus their lovemaking remained fraught, constantly on the verge of devolving into battle -- but Vergil kept them focused on body, not blood.  Lust, and not rage.  He teased when Dante's attention wandered toward murder, held him down when Dante fought his control, soothed him with pleasure when he twitched with the need to kill.  It was amazing.  Like riding a dragon.  He let Dante's wrists go and Dante instantly sliced up Vergil's thighs, his belly, anywhere he could reach, in the frenzy of his excitement.  Vergil hissed and pinned his hands again, but he arched with the pain, and almost came right there.

     He kept control, however.  Because both of them needed that.  Who was this magnificent, brutal, beautiful monster?  Dante.  And who had -- for now -- made himself the monster's master? 

     _Me_.  The monster in Vergil's heart smiled with all its teeth, in love and fierce pride. 

     There were no more words, or thoughts, for a time. 

     When they were done, resting and remembering themselves in Dante's bed, Vergil stroked his brother's wild hair back from his face.  "Better?"

     Dante sighed, eyes shut. "Yeah.  Thanks."

     "I would be happy to help you slaughter the entire human race, you know," Vergil said.  "Whenever you're ready."

     It wasn't a joke, and both of them knew it, though Dante laughed.  "Yeah, no.  I don't want to hear Nero's bitching."

     "Mmmh."  In all honesty, Vergil didn't, either.

     Dante's smile didn't last long before fading into a troubled frown.  "Never been that close, before."  He fell silent, but Vergil sensed his hovering anxiety.  The fear that his other self, the beast that even now they could both hear howling for blood within him, would break free again.

     Vergil sighed.  "Don't be foolish," he said.  He let his own eyes drift shut as he spoke, enjoying the warm satisfaction of the moment.  "I told you already:  no killing the humans.  You won't lose control again without my permission." 

     And not without his own, if Dante ever truly grew to hate humankind.  They knew, now, what it would take to set that off:  humans killing either Nero or Vergil.  If that happened, Dante would avenge them in blood, fire, and the dying screams of billions.  As Vergil would do, himself, if the humans were ever so foolish or lucky as to take his son or his brother from him.

     But Dante knew all this.  They had both come to terms with what they were, long ago.  Did he really need Vergil to take on this facade of responsibility?  Fine, then.  Vergil would do so.  It cost him nothing.

     He felt Dante tense in surprise.  "Your _permission_?  Are you high?  _Your_ permission?"

     Vergil sighed.  Family was exhausting.  "Go to sleep, Dante.  Be dramatic in the morning."

     It was a command.  And though Dante grumbled and muttered something like "bossy ass," he obediently sighed and curled closer, and finally shut up. 

     So Vergil folded an arm around his brother, and breathed deeply of his rich scent, and slept, content again that all was right with the world.

**Author's Note:**

> myyyyyyy fuckiiiiiing muuuuuse strikes again. This one started from nothing more than me thinking, "Huh, I never did get Vergil's POV on any of this," and that was all it took for my bitch-ass muse to go, "LOL, 5000 words of sociopathic introspection, have fun!" But I would really like to never go inside Vergil's head again, because it's a scary fucking place. (Things I never, ever wanted to consider? Whether Vergil knows what human tastes like. Answer: yes, and what's more, he's probably a snobbish foodie about it, turning up his nose at low-quality cuts of meat.) So let's hope *this* is the end. Again. Finally.
> 
> (grumble, mutter, flips a table)


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